PICARDY, an old province of France, bounded north by Hainaut and Artois, on the east by Champagne, on the south by the Ile de France, and on the west by Normandy and the English channel. Its maritime frontier ran from the mouth of the Aa to the cliffs of Caux, and it included the whole of the basin of the Somme and part of that of the Oise. The chief towns of Picardy were Amiens, Boulogne, Abbeville, Laon, Soissons, Montreuil, Peronne, Beauvais, Montdidier, St. Quentin and Noyon. Its prin cipal rivers were the Somme and the Oise. Picardy formed part of the archdiocese of Reims. Its bishoprics were Amiens, Beauvais, Senlis, Soissons, Noyon and Laon, and it contained the ancient abbeys of Corbie, St. Valery and St. Riquier. In 1789 the province of Picardy was covered by the three bishoprics of Amiens, Noyon and Boulogne. It was one of the provinces of the five great fermes. Its area now forms the department of the Somme and parts of the departments of Pas de Calais, Aisne and Oise.
The name of Picardy does not appear until the 13th century. At that time the province was divided into the two bailliages of Amiens and Vermandois, but its regular organization as part of the kingdom of France only dates from the beginning of the 16th cen tury, when it was divided into north and south Picardy. North Picardy, or Picardy proper, formed one of the great military governorships of the kingdom, while south Picardy was included in the Ile de France.
Under the Romans, Picardy was part of Belgica secunda; it was inhabited by the Morini, the Ambiani, the Veromandui, the Bello vaci and the Suessiones, whose names still appear in Amiens, Ver mandois, Beauvais and Soissons. In the 5th century Picardy be
came the centre of Merovingian France. Clovis had his first capi tal at Soissons; Charlemagne had his at Noyon, and Laon was the capital and the refuge of the later Carolingian sovereigns.
During the later feudal period Picardy was the home of the counts of Vermandois, of Clermont and of Ponthieu, the sire of Coucy, and others. The dukes of Burgundy were anxious to annex Picardy; in 1435, by the famous treaty of Arras, the royal towns and lands in the valley of the Somme were ceded by King Charles VII. to Burgundy. However, after the death of Charles the Bold in 1477 Picardy was finally united with the crown of France. The province was early an industrial district. Flemish immigrants brought with them the lucrative trade of weaving cloth, and the Somme towns were soon competing with those of Flanders. The Picard towns were noted for their love of independence, which often brought them into collision with the kings of France during the 13th century. At a later time the province received a number of Spanish immigrants. In the middle ages the Picardy formed one of the four "nations" recognized in the organization of the Uni versity of Paris.
See A. Labourt, Essai sur l'origine des vines de Picardie (Amiens, 2840) ; P. N. Grenier, Introduction a l'histoire generale de la province de Picardie (Amiens, 1856) ; and H. Carnoy, Litterature orale de la Picardie (1883).